From the Poet's Heart

Main menu

Tag Archives: Daylight Saving

What works for you? Did you miss the hour the daylight saving system just stole or not? You’ll get it back of course in the fall, but by then it will be long forgotten. Time is such an odd thing. Totally artificial and man made, even our calendar has gone through several changes over the centuries. Daylight saving was actually suggested by Ben Franklin, though not put into use for a long time later. It has always seemed to me to be something o a nuisance, however opinion is divided as to its usefulness. About forty countries have some form or “Summer Time,” as it is usually called.

Daylight saving, does make for a disruption and an inconvenience. Unless you live in Hawaii or Arizona, the extra hour subtracted from the beginning and tacked back on more than seven months from now is something most of us have to put up with one way or another. Some of us do welcome the longer evening hours. Others bemoan the resetting of our clocks and our bodily systems. Babies, as I remember from my days as a young mother don’t reset easily, nor do pets. At one level it’s a little like jet lag that lasts one day instead of several.

When I need more time to get something done I wish there were some way to have a stash put away in a cupboard where I could take some out to use, like that extra hour we just lost. I remember several different stories I read with such a theme. Each of the protagonists had a way of hoarding up time. I found myself envious of people who could make use of their ability to add more time or else manipulate it so that they could put it to use for themselves for whatever the plot required of them.

How to use time efficiently continues to be the subject of a good many studies. For myself I have to admit that my effective use of it owes more to being strict with myself about avoiding distractions than anything else. Like many I have a way of letting one thing lead to another—oh, I’ll just look at that email, and then I catch a glimpse of another, and then the phone rings, or Stephen needs something, then where was I…and the day slips away until it’s over and I ask myself, “what did I accomplish anyway?” It helps to make a list, and cross off what I manage to get done, and rewrite the list when it gets used up. That and the discipline of “Not now, please” are about all I have to help me.

When I was a child time seemed an endless treasure I could do with what I wished. Now it is a precious substance I try unsuccessfully to hoard. I find it fascinating to observe how quickly or how slowly it can move, dependent on the circumstances. For instance, it always seems to take longer to get somewhere than to return from the same destination, regardless of traffic. While I do my best to make good use of the time given me, I hope that one day I will find a way to focus better than I do now, so that the constraints I feel around time will melt away and I will always feel I have enough.